


Epithalamion

by Matloc



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Cheesy, I'm serious this is very cheesy it'll give you a heart attack, Lots of stars, M/M, NOBODY DIES TRUST ME, Photographer!Akashi, SUPER CHEESY, Someone get a grater for all this cheese, Stars, but also whipped!Kuroko, featuring Akashi smiling at Kuroko a lot, featuring whipped!Akashi, happy akkr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 17:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4146768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matloc/pseuds/Matloc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seijuurou will give Tetsuya his stars.</p><blockquote>
  <p>“Why did you choose astronomy?” Seijuurou had once asked a few years ago, back when they were still flirting around a fledgling relationship.</p>
  <p>“I’ve always wanted to touch a star since I was a kid,” replied Tetsuya, and that was that.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Epithalamion

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. ok no i'm serious nobody dies this time  
> 2\. nobody suffers  
> 3\. only happy akkr  
> 4\. please pretend young photographers are mega rich ok it's Akashi come on

 

It begins with a fleeting glance, caught onto a red gaze for longer than what social etiquette would deem necessary. Social etiquette also recommends Kuroko avert his eyes immediately, but it’s a kind of contact he finds oddly magnetic. Amongst a wave of faceless people—some hurrying to their next class while the rest simply roam about in the background—he finds himself hooked.

Surely he’s not the only one to have ever been ensnared. That person stands out too much, and it’s not just that vivid red hair clashing with the azure backdrop behind him. It’s how he’s standing tall in that metaphysical display of looking over everyone and everything from a height Kuroko can’t see. He looks like he’s made the entire sky his throne, and it unnerves Kuroko enough for him to turn away. Finally.

But that brilliant red gaze, it follows.

—

In reality, it starts with Nigou.

It’s a bright day out, and it doesn’t take much for Nigou to convince him for a walk in the nearby park. Three years and he still hasn’t gotten used to how energetic his dog can be sometimes, so he can only blame himself when the leash soon slips out of his hand once Nigou finds an involuntary friend in a butterfly.

In his defense, he does call out his renegade dog’s name, though it doesn’t come as a surprise when it proves itself useless. Only when he sees Nigou bump into someone’s leg does Kuroko bother running after him, preparing an automatic apology in his head.

“I’m sorry—ah.” That wasn’t meant to slip out. His moment of recognition should have been kept to himself, because he is not at all ready to be assaulted by the intensity of that familiar red gaze. It should come as a concern that he hasn’t forgotten it yet, but by now he’s already got a name to tack onto it.

“Akashi-san.”

The other blinks in surprise. “Do I know you?”

Kuroko shakes his head. “Everyone at the campus knows who Akashi-san is.” After all, Akashi Seijuurou has made a big name for himself in the world of photography, after gaining an insurmountable amount of fame since his first exhibition during middle school.

Akashi raises his eyebrows. “Is that so?” he asks as though he’s genuinely surprised.

Kuroko nods, though he wonders if he’s not the only one to have instantly joined the ranks of people who found Akashi’s voice very pleasant.

He tugs lightly at Nigou’s leash, ready to bow and take his leave.

“And?” It’s definitely something magnetic, Kuroko thinks. How everything about Akashi seems to make him stop in his tracks. A single word, just like that.

He looks up to see Akashi’s lips curved into a most polite offering of a smile.

“May I have the privilege of knowing your name then?”

His voice sounds very, very pleasant when he’s smiling.

—

The summer heat kicks in strong, making an oven out of Kuroko's insides. A bout of vertigo leaves him crumbling on a bench hidden under the shade of a tree, where he proceeds to curse himself for skipping breakfast again. Though he knows deep down this won’t be the last time it happens.

“Here.” A voice snaps him out of the sweltering mess of his thoughts a couple minutes later, and even in this heat he doesn’t need to look up to know who it is.

A plastic cup’s being placed in his hands, he nearly drops it in shock when he feels the cold.

“Vanilla milkshake; your favorite, I assume.” Akashi says when Kuroko stares at him. For a while he continues to do just that.

“…how?” How did he know?

They’ve only just risen above a tentative friendship in the past few days allowing them small opportunities of casual interaction, and he hasn’t taken to sharing anything about himself yet.

“I’ve seen you around the cafe at the campus. You always order the same thing.” He crinkles his nose as he looks at Kuroko’s drink.

Kuroko was about to thank him too. "Is Akashi-kun criticizing my tastes?“ he asks, sipping the shake, reveling in the cool sensation flooding his tongue more than anything.

"When you substitute actual food with cheap, processed junk, it falls on me, as your friend, to correct that behavior,” Akashi declares, unapologetic if anything.

Offended doesn’t even begin to describe how Kuroko’s feeling right now. Any words of gratitude he was saving up have already been killed now, and he only offers silence in his stubbornness, opting to keep his lips around the straw for as long as Akashi tries to engage him.

Thankfully, Akashi's starting to get used to his moods. "Kuroko, come rest at my house.“

He looks awfully pleased with himself when Kuroko starts coughing.

—

The first time Akashi asked him to come over, he was rejected right on the spot.

A week later, his persistence pays off. He makes it a point to lure Kuroko in with wholesome food ever since.

"They’re beautiful,” Kuroko tells him one day when they're down at Akashi’s studio. The shorter man immediately finds himself lost in a world of flowering backdrops and night skies. He finds sunsets peeking from around the corner, a colorful arrangement of temples and towers decorating a slotted pillar. Several other vibrant sceneries from all over the world fill up the walls, and it almost feels like he can step right into a frame and find himself in one of the worlds Akashi has captured in the lens of his camera.

In the midst of exploration, he notices a narrow hallway that leads to a rather spacey alcove. It stands out way too much, walls pristine white and  _bare_  like it’s not even part of the studio. He debates asking about it, wondering whether he’s even allowed to probe further when he’s already been given the honor of beholding the entirety of Akashi's work in person. No doubt this is his most personal space, he realizes that very moment. 

There’s an itch in his throat, a question trapped inside about the walls looking so tragically empty, and another one that swelters in his head and goes on to corrode his train of thought for the next few days. If he’s the first one Akashi has ever allowed here.

But at present, he turns around and nearly bumps into Akashi. Now he really wants to bring up the issue of boundaries, but a charming smile shoots down whatever complaints he has back into his stomach where the remains flutter about against his belly, in that regrettably tingling sensation that has him breathing shallow, fast.

“This space is reserved,” Akashi explains as he twists Kuroko around to face the wall. The hands on his shoulders feel gentle, and it’s oddly comforting, but that doesn’t suppress the shiver that runs down his spine when there’s a voice right at his ear, softly continuing, "For the day I meet someone beautiful enough for these walls.“

Working through quick algorithms in his head, Kuroko evaluates all possible outcomes of advising Akashi to simply look at a mirror instead.

—

Kuroko’s memories of Akashi almost always end with him smiling. When he looks back on it all, it felt like each time he would unfurl something new that Akashi held out in the open for Kuroko to take. A part of himself that he wanted to share with Kuroko, untangling another abstract fractal, one by one, from a space that drew up the pinnacle of his life, and he laid them all out like a patchwork of the moments he finds most important. Kuroko has yet to figure out what this means.

But he is grateful.

An outsider’s opinion would paint Akashi as a rather intimidating character, no fault in that undoubtedly handsome appearance of his as much as it is the atmosphere around him that keeps people at bay. Like he walks on a grand station of fame and fortune no one else could even touch in their dreams.

A few weeks ago, Kuroko would have said the same. Only now does he realize how terribly mistaken he was.

"Akashi-kun,” he calls out from the entrance.

The redhead is there to greet him with Nigou at his side, who’s eagerly wagging his tail. “Kuroko, I hope your grandmother is doing well?” he asks with a genuine concern that endears him to Kuroko all the more.

“No, it was just a false alarm. They said she’ll be better after a few days’ rest.” When he’d heard that his grandmother had collapsed, he was ready to rush home in a two-hour train ride before remembering Nigou. He had figured he'd probably be gone for a day or two, and he found himself in a most terrible quandary that he needed to resolve as soon as possible.

Akashi had been the first person to come to mind.

“Once again, I apologize for leaving Nigou in your care, Akashi-kun. Sorry for the bother.” He’s feeling a little light-headed as he speaks; that’s what he gets for running all the way here, he supposes.

“Hardly. You have a very well-mannered dog, Kuroko. I have grown rather fond of him.” He smiles slightly at Nigou, who yips from his spot near Akashi’s leg.

It’s not like Kuroko to be so reckless and hasty, but a mysterious force had dragged him all the way to Akashi’s condo in an instant, leaving him flushed and panting for a while before he could muster up the strength to open the door with the key Akashi had given him before he left. Just in case, Akashi had said.

“Kuroko?” asks Akashi from seemingly farther away. Or was it his own head muffling the sounds around him?

He feels a weight set into his bones, anchoring him forward until he’s suddenly tripping on air.

Something grabs him in time and pulls him up. It’s Akashi, somehow he can tell. He vaguely recognizes his name being called but everything’s fading away along with the tension in his body, and he goes limp in Akashi’s hold.

It's relieving, having someone to depend on after being by himself for so long. And here Kuroko had naively thought he’d already prepared himself for all the common inconveniences his choice of living alone might bring.

In this moment, with his head swimming and vision dotting out all semblance of light, he realizes he’s very glad to have met Akashi.

—

The bed he wakes up in is much larger than he remembers, but it’s the Egyptian silk sliding off his body that gives away the current state of things. It’s definitely past daytime, though he can’t make out much through the jet black curtains hanging behind him.

“Sleep deprivation, no?” Kuroko jolts up startled at how Akashi’s voice pierces through the quiet of the room.

He’s sitting at a desk in some dark corner, chair turned in Kuroko's direction, cross-legged and a picture of menacing when he lets the silence stretch on like he’s challenging an answer from Kuroko.

Denial is not an option in this case, playing dumb is even worse.

Akashi puts down the shogi piece he’s been toying with, forgetting the ongoing game in favor of heading towards the bed.

Kuroko gets the strong urge to back away.

“It seems like Nigou’s not the only one who needs to be taken care of.” Kuroko can’t tell if it’s just the reigning silence that falls deep in the timbre of Akashi’s voice, because it resonates through the silk of the bedsheets and makes his stomach curl with a feeling that’s all too familiar, but it’s more intense, more enthralling.

Anticipation.

That’s what makes him shiver at the mere sensation of Akashi running the back of his fingers along Kuroko’s neck.

“You don’t seem to have a fever at least,” he says, and his voice definitely sounds lower than usual, because it’s really having an undesirable effect on Kuroko.

The sheets feel smooth in his grip as he tightens his fingers around them, holds his breath when Akashi continues, still brushing his hand down the side of Kuroko’s neck. “I expect this to be the only time where you forget to take care of yourself, or I will be forced to do it for you.”

What does that entail, Kuroko wants to ask. Though an answer’s already brewing in his mind. “Akashi-kun…” Does he apologize? Does he thank him? His own wants are tangled along the hooks of inhibition that halt him from going further, but it’s the fear of rejection that keeps him in a chokehold of flowers plucked in guessing games, of pulling back instead of reaching out to the opportune moment that easily traverses a line beyond platonic.

“Though it is not always that I am blessed with the auspicious occasion of having Kuroko in my bed.” With the smile Akashi gives him, he’s convinced that any such lines have been crossed eons ago.

Without even a second thought, a burst of confidence catches him off guard to the point that the words are just tumbling out of his mouth, “Can I stay the night, Akashi-kun?”

There’s one more thing he learns today, that he quite likes surprising Akashi.

—

Three hours later, Kuroko wakes up to a hand trailing along his cheek.

“Ah, did I wake you?” He finds himself looking into deep red eyes. They crinkle at the corners when Kuroko shifts closer.

“Akashi-kun can’t fall asleep?” he asks, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes.

“Hmm…” Akashi murmurs as he gently brushes away a fringe over his forehead, Kuroko finds himself in a sweet lull and leans in. “How can I sleep knowing that Kuroko’s right beside me?”

A lazy kick to the shin is all Akashi gets before Kuroko burrows his head back into the covers of the bed, which feel much warmer now.

—

It's raining one night when Kuroko asks, “Am I the first one who got to see Akashi-kun’s studio?”

It’s evidently chilly tonight, with Kuroko sitting inside a cocoon of thick purple sheets wrapped around him, covering everything except his face.

“Tetsuya is the only one who’s ever seen it." Akashi answers in what’s probably the most casual manner, but Kuroko’s already hiding his smile in the sheets.

"I see. Thank you, Akashi-kun.”

Akashi’s at the other side of the bed, toweling his hair. When he’s done, he cranes his head back in Kuroko’s direction. “I suppose I should be thanking you instead.”

“For what?”

He crawls to Kuroko’s side, bundling him up in his arms, presses a kiss to the back of his head through the silk and whispers a secret, “Nothing.”

—

During winter, Kuroko’s fond of sleeping in, enjoying the newfound comfort that only comes with the warmth of Akashi’s thick bedsheets. A busy uni student like him doesn’t get the privilege of lazy days often, so he treasures these momentary reprieves from the daily toil of monstrous assignments and unfair mock exams like blessings of gold.

It’s much easier with Akashi around, who is all too eager to spoil him if Kuroko ever lets him get his away.

Like right now probably, when he comes downstairs following the smell of eggs, and for a while he just watches Akashi busying himself at the counter. His chest swells at the sight, he never imagined a word like ‘homely’ could match someone like Akashi, yet here he is.

Here they are.

He steps close, wraps his arms around Akashi’s torso and rests his forehead on the back of a strong shoulder.

“Ah, good morning, Tetsuya.” Kuroko mumbles a long reply into his shirt. “What is it?”

Kuroko smiles, his whisper filters through the sizzling of butter and spices. “Nothing.”

—

The sweet smell of pears wafts through the air when Kuroko tries to scoot away in the water, but a pair of arms are right there to pull him back against a toned chest.

“Akashi-kun, please go away. I can’t wash myself with you around,” he gives the most half-hearted attempt at a scolding. How he got roped into sharing the bath with his lover, he’ll never understand.

Akashi hums, loosening his hold. “Well then, feel free to get out, Tetsuya.”

Kuroko frowns. “Akashi-kun is interfering with my very first experience in such a spacious bathtub. Although…” He trails off with his eyes glued to the wall.

“What’s wrong?” asks Akashi.

“I’m surprised there’s no lion in here.” It gets a laugh out of Akashi, and Kuroko thinks it’s the most pleasant thing he’s heard in a while.

“Is Tetsuya disappointed?”

Kuroko mulls over it for a moment. "No,“ he lets himself relax in Akashi’s embrace. "I’ll settle for this.”

It’s fine, just like this.

—

Tetsuya’s smiles are a rarity you find in that one impossible cut of a diamond that makes it glitter brilliantly in the dark with just a flicker of light.

So Seijuurou can hardly be blamed for giving in once again to the instincts he was born with, that make him carry his camera around like his lens-covered lifeline, make him reach out for it instantly when he finds something that he decides he never wants to forget.

In that way, Tetsuya is an anomaly within the auspicious glimpses of life he’s allowed to see only when the sun’s at the perfect height, only in the absolute stillness where a pearly dew drop hangs low from the edge of a leaf seconds before falling, only that extraordinary frame of time where a butterfly is caught with wings fully spread out for all the world to see. Where everything Tetsuya shows has become a commonality in his life and his very presence is now a fixture he has to peer around to look at the rest of the world.

It’s only a given he grows used to Tetsuya after spending over a year with him. Yet day by day that fact only makes Tetsuya's presence grow larger and larger in his life until everything else zooms out to the backdrop. It’s something special, he thinks.

Tetsuya; he’s special.

A reminder for this comes on a very important day for him, when he helps carry Kuroko's stuff into his bedroom while Nigou sleeps in his backyard, when he realizes the bedroom is now _theirs_ , his backyard is now  _theirs_ , his house and everything that comes with it is now  _theirs_.

He starts calling it home.

(It’s a very important day and he shows Tetsuya by pulling him into their bedroom, onto their bed, and showering his body with kisses. The suitcase sits drooping in a corner, forgotten.)

—

The sight he’s greeted with leaves Tetsuya speechless. The once empty hallway in the back of Seijuurou’s studio is now littered with pictures. Some taken with amazing lighting that turns the mundane facets of daily ho-hum into picturesque epithets of what is missed, left unseen like flowers growing through decrepit cracks. Most are candid shots, taken in the moment, where constructed perfection is lost in authenticity and a stark realism that otherwise offers no such articulations in eye-catching poses and studio lighting.

Tetsuya is in every single one of these pictures.

Before any words could even take shape in his head, he finds himself staring at what’s lying at the end of the hallway.

It’s a massive photo print of him and Nigou, framed right at the center, taking up most of the wall.

They were out on a date at some famous park that allowed entry to pets, he remembers. The midday sun cleared right above their heads, spilling golden over the entire vicinity shaded by glistening trees.

Nigou had bounded back to Tetsuya just then, nuzzling a wet nose against his cheek and he couldn’t help but laugh out of sheer surprise.

He remembers now, the sharp snap of a shutter that he was too preoccupied at that moment to pay any heed to.

Mainly because this was not at all what he was expecting to see.

“This is what I see,” Seijuurou speaks up from behind him. “It’s home.”

There’s a lump in Tetsuya’s throat, right now he can only manage a nod in return.

Later on, in the softness of silk sheets and faint moonlight peeking through the curtains, he pours out the entirety of his feelings in a way that doesn’t need words.

—

“Why did you choose astronomy?” Seijuurou had once asked a few years ago, back when they were still flirting around a fledgling relationship.

“I’ve always wanted to touch a star since I was a kid,” replied Tetsuya, and that was that.

“What if I give them to you?” Seijuurou asks into the crook of his neck tonight. Tetsuya’s cheeks are still flushed from their activities before, and he gasps out a tiny laugh.

“Even Seijuurou-kun has things he cannot do,” he teases when his breathing’s back to normal.

“Making Tetsuya’s dreams come true is not one of those.”

Seijuurou almost sounds offended, so Tetsuya turns around and silences any incoming complaint with a kiss.

—

Seijuurou disappears for a week after that, informing Tetsuya that he’s taken up an important project and revealing nothing else.

This isn’t the first time he’s gone to travel the world to capture breathtaking stills of the magic Nature weaves onto the skies and the earth. He usually takes Tetsuya along with him, in a way celebrating the rare occasion of his lover not being clogged up with work.

This time he doesn’t offer anything. Instead, he makes Tetsuya promise to meet him at a certain place a week later.

When the time comes, Tetsuya realizes he once again ended up unprepared for this.

“What has Seijuurou-kun been doing here?” he asks, letting go of Seijuurou’s hand after he leads Tetsuya inside.

He tries to look around but he can hardly make out anything in the dark. It’s strange, even for Seijuurou, to ask him to come meet him in a place like this in the middle of the night. From outside it looked like a small dome-shaped cottage, but the interior’s much larger than he expected. He wonders if Seijuurou bought this when he wasn’t looking.

Seijuurou claps his hands twice and the floor suddenly lights up.

Tetsuya’s breath is knocked right out of him.

Stars. Everywhere. Every inch of wall and ceiling is covered with stars, and when his eyes begin to adjust, he realizes he’s actually looking at hundreds of pictures of stars.

There’s an entire collage of a galaxy splayed out in front of him, around him, and there are constellations glittering lifelike, as if they’re actually swimming around him, or maybe it’s his vision spinning from what’s probably the biggest surprise he has ever received in his life.

“Seijuurou-kun…” His mind drops to a halt, his senses are so overwhelmed he can hardly form words around all these stars invading his vision.

“I gave you stars,” is all Seijuurou says, so easily like he hasn’t just spent several days taking a million pictures of the night sky.

Tetsuya holds a breath because his mind still can’t register what’s happening, photos meant to stop time in their venture make the stars twist and twirl in their glossy lacquer. He can’t help but feel around the walls, if only to make sure that they’re truly just pictures even though it still feels like he can touch all the stars in the universe with his hand.

Something scrapes his fingers as they tremble, as they dance on the wall, and he spots a star shining out of the corner of his eye. Losing all conscious train of thought in the rime of pure wonder, for a second he actually believes he’s pulling out a tiny star from the sky in the wall.

But what he sees makes him forget about the stars and the sky and everything around him as his gaze focuses on the thing glittering in his palm.

A simple, silver ring topped with a Marquise-cut diamond.

“What–” He can’t believe this. “Is this…” He whirls around towards his lover.

Seijuurou smiles.

 

**Author's Note:**

> btw epithalamion means an ode written to the bride ok /kicked out of fandom


End file.
